Rowling misses out on Bad Sex award

J K Rowling has been overlooked in the nominations for the Literary Review’s Bad Sex award.

Despite attracting headlines for the graphic content of her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy (Little, Brown), the book has not made the eight-strong list.

The titles currently under consideration are The Yips by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate); The Adventuress by Nicholas Coleridge (Orion); Infrared by Nancy Huston (Atlantic); Rare Earth by Paul Mason (No Exit Press); Noughties by Ben Masters (Penguin); The Quiddity of Will Self by Sam Mills (Corsair); The Divine Comedy by Craig Raine (Atlantic); and Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe (Jonathan Cape).

The judges said that after a “flood” of nominations they had considered Rowling’s book, but: “ultimately concluded that the book’s sins were venal compared with the competition”.

Last year, the prize was won by David Guterson for Ed King (Bloomsbury). The award was presented by Barbara Windsor.

The award has been nominated every year since 1993, and has previously been won by current nominee Tom Wolfe, Normal Mailer, Giels Coren, Sebastian Faulks and Melvyn Bragg. In 2008, John Updike was given the Lifetime Achievement Award.

It was established to: “draw attention to the crude, badly written, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it".

E L James’ bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey was not considered, as the prize does not cover pornographic or expressly erotic literature.

This year’s winner will be announced at the a ceremony at the Naval & Military Club (known as the In and Out Club) on 4th December.